I'm a journalist covering everything from media issues to the world of that very particular group of people who are just as rich as they are media shy. I also write about my native country of Brazil and its growing importance as a global player, from a Brazilian-who-spends-a-lot-of-time-abroad point of view. My articles have been cited by numerous publications and media outlets such as The Financial Times, USA Today, The Telegraph, CNN, MSNBC and others.Thanks to my work, I split my time between Europe, the United States and Brazil. Feel free to follow me on Twitter: @AndersonThinks. You can email me at: aantunes[at]forbes[dot]com

How A 65-Year-Old Toothpick Brand Became A Surprising (And Profitable) Facebook Marketing Stunt

It’s the internet phenomenon that has everybody talking in Brazil, and yet it was born out of a college dorm room during an informal chat between fellow students. Sound familiar? Yes, I’m talking about Facebook, but not the big idea that came out of Mark Zuckerberg‘s mind, although the founder of the world’s number one social network has a lot to do with it.

I’m talking about Gina Indelicada (which would literally translate as ‘Indelicate Gina’) a hit Facebook page created about twelve days ago that has already reached over 1.5 million likes, considerably more than some of the country’s most notorious public figures (former president Lula da Silva’s official fan page has just about 222,000 likes, while supermodel Gisele Bundchen‘s fan page has 857,000).

So, who is Gina and why is she so popular? Gina is actually a fictional character based on a model who starred in a 1970s ad campaign for a Brazilian brand of toothpicks called Rela Gina. While other toothpick companies used to sell their product wrapped in cellophane paper, Rela Gina’s executives thought it was a good idea to place the toothpicks inside of a paper box, so it would be easier to take them to the table. The perfect packaging found, they just needed a face to feature in the boxes. The rest is history, and by giving an identity to the simplest of manufactured things, Rela Gina, or simply Gina, became one of the most well-known products in Brazil, accounting for 40% of the company’s total revenue.

But Gina, the toothpick brand, and Gina Indelicada, the Facebook star, aren’t related at all. The latter was an idea of Riccky Lopes, a 19-year-old advertising student based in Sao Paulo, who created the page after successfully experimenting in the world of social media marketing. Lopes’ first foray into social networking was in 2010, when he launched a Twitter profile that, at one point, was the second most retweeted in the world (the first was Justin Bieber‘s, number 4 on Forbes’ Social Networking Superstars list). The profile has been deactivated because, as Lopes tells Forbes in a telephone interview Monday, he was “just using it to get familiar with the microblog.”

“People think I just happened to discover the internet, but the truth is I’ve been researching a lot about all of this for quite some time,” Lopes says. During that time, he discovered that there’s no secret for reaching huge audiences on the internet, something that he achieved more than once in Facebook (besides Gina Indelicada, his other page has roughly 800,000 fans); but only one simple rule that should be followed: interactivity at all times.

“What people really want is to be a part of something, to interact and have their voices heard somehow,” he explains. As for the idea of Gina Indelicada, Lopes recounted that he had the concept in mind, but he needed a character to make it happen. “I was making dinner with my roommates, when I opened the fridge and saw a box of Gina toothpicks. We chatted for a while about it, and then it came to me–Gina was the character I was looking for.”

The page consists of screenshots of messages sent to Gina by its fans asking questions about anything, which are always answered in a sarcastic, sometimes indelicate way. “Brazilians are known for their friendliness, for their love of hugging and all that, what can sometimes be seen as fake. So whenever a person comes around who breaks that stereotype, people will relate to them as someone who speaks their mind and is sincere. Gina is all of that,” says Lopes.

Gina has become something else, particularly for the company to which the character is commercially associated. “We never expected this kind of attention and we certainly don’t intend to sue Lopes for it. Instead, we want to partner up with him,” says Alfredo Rela Neto, CEO of the company, which is already looking into ways of cashing in on the free publicity, including a portfolio of new products based on Gina. “It’s amazing the fact that he’s a 19-year-old student and Gina is a 65-year-brand. He’s bringing us a totally new consumer audience.”

As for Lopes, who claims to have received many job offers in the past few days, he just signed with a new ad agency to coordinate the online campaign of a famous brand of deodorants, whose name he cannot reveal for the moment.

Facebook has become the ultimate tool for companies looking for new ways to connect with customers. As a media channel reaching hundreds of millions of people (46 million in Brazil alone, its second largest market worldwide), it’s a matter of survival to be there. “No other advertising channel, at least where you can communicate, can compete with those numbers,” says Facebook advertiser Freddie Jansson.

“I think a web campaign for a company is more effective than a television campaign these days,” says Lopes. “Facebook presents all the opportunities for those who know how to use it.” Lopes admits, though, that the website will probably lose its strong presence eventually. “It has happened before, other social networking websites, like Orkut, became irrelevant. Facebook’s time will come, too.”

But while it’s still hot, Lopes intends to make the most of it. “When I started Gina Indelicada, I expected to reach a million Likes in a month. I’ve got more than that in just a few days, plus amazing job offers that never occurred me and even business proposals. I think that’s what Facebook gives people and businesses: the chance to reinvent themselves. It’s what I did and it is what Rela Gina is doing. And I applaud Zuckerberg for that. He’s a visionary.”

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Even Bob Hope did that. He never troubled to invent his own material. In the early days, he “lifted” it (there is no copyright in jokes). As his career developed, he hired writers. In his heyday, on the Pepsodent Radio Hour, he would have several teams slaving away on competing scripts. But Lopes is not a comedian, and based on that alone he shoulnd’t be judged as such. Making buzz and attracting millions to a Facebook page and a traditional company’s attention is what makes his story appealing.

He is a fraud … never was his idea to page evolve so quickly he said that strategy and planning because I knew that he could earn good jobs … Now what will he do at work is what made ​​the page was only grow so much content that alias is content authored by others … The internet is getting more and more would be participating in the social life of people … things that happened there before being disseminated to real life and your problems … Riccky Lopes is just a smart guy who runs the risk of being sued and even before that happened will be forgotten by the fall of mesmisse sink into your self ego.

We need ur help for three kids treatment. Kindly see the website below. http://miracleforthree.com/

Our Journey is still continue by Miracle For Three on Tuesday, August 14, 2012 at 8:17am ·

We are Shahid and Saher Tabassam, residents of Lahore, Pakistan and parents to three amazing children––Nida, 14; Ahmad, 12; and our youngest Eman, 7. Once we too were a happy, content family like most are. Yes, we were not rich but we had good health and love and that was enough, until Muscular Dystrophy (MD) afflicted our three children and took our joy away from us.

MD is a rare genetic disorder that is severely disabling, and sometimes life threatening. Our children were perfectly healthy and bright until they got this disease which causes severe muscular wasting. It has left the two older children––Nida and Ahmad paralyzed from waist down with the youngest headed in the same direction. The smallest of task, even moving, has become a challenge for these once active and energetic kids.

Searching for Help

Muscular Dystrophy (MD) has many variations and having an accurate diagnosis is key to managing the disease. (Learn more about types of MD). We have been frustrated with the lack of resources at our disposal. While the doctors in Pakistan are convinced that the children have Duchenne muscular dystrophy, the Singapore National Health Sciences Hospital diagnosed them as suffering from “some problem similar to Limb girdle muscular dystrophy.” We need a complete and thorough examination of the children to get an accurate diagnosis so that a course of treatment and management can be planned accordingly. The prognosis for Duchenne muscular dystrophy is not good. Affected males with this progressive muscular disease become wheelchair bound before 13 years of age, are ventilator dependent in their late teens to early 20s due to respiratory failure, with death in their late 20s to 30s due to cardiac or pulmonary problems. We refuse to accept that death sentence for our children.

In Pakistan, we have been unable to find proper diagnosis, cure, or treatment for our children. For instance, the diagnostic facility in Pakistan only offers CPK blood test, while CPK MB AND CPK BB are more accurate to classify the nature of NMD. Unfortunately, no lab in Pakistan has this facility. We know that at present time, proper management is the best treatment that is offered for NMD that has no known cure. Unfortunately, we don’t even have access to that.

https://www.facebook.com/MiracleForThree?ref=stream

Looking Ahead

The latest research ongoing in U.K. and U.S.A offers a more thorough diagnosis and trials are underway for treatment and cure. Before a treatment/management plan can be designed for our children, genetic and molecular study to classify the exact type of Muscular Dystrophy needs to be done in U.K. and U.S. We are also interested in participating in research studies that are underway there. We cannot take no for an answer when our children’s lives are at stake. We would like to take advantage of the ongoing experimental trials that are proving to improve the quality of life of children like ours through proper management and medical treatment.

The Singapore National Health Sciences Hospital advised us to get molecular genetics testing done from U.K. or U.S. since the children could benefit from latest research studies being conducted there. Learn more about the latest research on MD.

How You Can Help We are a one-income family living in a rental apartment. As such our means are very limited. Our requests to various authorities in Pakistan for financial assistance to take the children abroad for proper diagnosis have not been answered.

We have now received an appointment letter from Great Ormond Street Hospital in London for October 18, 2012 to take our children there in order to get a detailed genetic consultation, physiotherapy assessment, and to talk about Exon skipping plan based on results of biopsy for genes molecular diagnosis and its management. While there we will be looking into getting Scoliosis surgery for Nida which is very costly (between £100,000-£120,000). We will have to cover the airfare as well as boarding and lodging.